College of Idaho Men's Basketball to Face CCC Co-Leader LC State and Walla Walla

SERIES HISTORY: For the second Friday in a row, College of Idaho will be one of the marquee matchups in the Cascade Collegiate Conference as the two teams are tied for the top spot. College of Idaho has won its last 13 contests after starting conference play with a loss to Southern Oregon. The Warriors will enter the contest on a six-game winning streak since the matchup on January 6. College of Idaho won that meeting by a 81-71 margin to extend its series winning streak to five. The two teams first met in 1926 as College of Idaho holds a 53-39 advantage in the all-time series. Saturday's contest for the Yotes is against Walla Walla, where College of Idaho has not lost a contest in 24 meetings with the series a bit younger than LCSC as they began playing one another in 2011.  

BY THE NUMBERS
• Familiar starting five:
 - 62 for Drew Wyman and 53 for Jake O'Neil.

• 1,145-consecutive games with a 3-pointer
 - Just four programs in college basketball have a streak at or longer than the Yotes. UNLV has made a 3-pointer in 1,212 games; followed by Duke (1,209), CCC foe, Corban (1,200) and a share of third with East Tennessee State (1,145).

• Half-time advantage:
 - 48-straight when they lead at half...three times (most recently at Corban on January 12) in 2023-24, the Yotes have overcame a halftime deficit to win. They trailed just twice in 2022-23 at halftime on its way to a 1-1 record in the two contests. 

1,000-POINT PLATEAU: Jake O'Neil became the 31st player in program history to reach the 1,000-point mark in the 79-51 win over Multnomah in program history. He was joined in the 1,000-point club by Johnny Radford, who reached the mark with his second 3-pointer in the win over Walla Walla. Drew Wyman became the third Yote with over 1,000 career points with his 13-point effort at Bushnell. It is the first time in program history that the Yotes have had three 1,000-point scorers on the roster in the same year. 

WYMAN SNAGS PLAYER OF THE WEEK HONORS: Drew Wyman enjoyed a lot of success, last weekend against OIT and Southern Oregon en route to CCC/RIZE Laboratory Player of the Week honors. He shot 81% from the field, 73.3% from the 3-point line to go along with 4.5 rebounds per game and 22.5 points per game. He knocked down a career-high seven 3-pointers in the 83-59 rout of Oregon Tech on his way to a career-high 23 points. Against the Owls, Wyman was 8 of 9 from the field and 7 of 8 from the 3-point line. He followed that up with 22 points, going 9-for-12 from the field and 4 of 7 from the 3-point line to go along with nine rebounds in an 82-50 rout of Southern Oregon. The last Yote to earn weekly recognition from the CCC was Jake O'Neil on February 6, 2023. 

DOUBLE DOUBLE, DOUBLE DOUBLE (CAREER)
Jake O'Neil: 16 (25; last vs. Evergreen (1/20/24)
 - O'Neil on seven occasions has recorded back-to-back double doubles.
Straton Rogers: 2 (last vs. Multnomah (2/4/23)
Samaje Morgan: 1 (last vs. Oregon Tech (1/20/23)
Tyler Robinett: 1 (last at Northwest (2/17/23)
Drew Wyman: 1 (last vs. Lewis-Clark State (1/27/23)

POLL CHATTER: For the last two polls, College of Idaho has found itself at the No. 3 spot. The eight weeks at No. 1 by the Yotes ranks 24th among NAIA programs and among CCC teams, it is second to Oregon Tech, who has spent 15 weeks at the top spot. The Yotes have spent the last 20 weeks ranked in the top 25 which is the fourth-longest active streak in the NAIA. C of I moved into fourth after William Penn (Iowa) dropped out after the first poll after three-straight losses.

School    Active Streak    Last Time Unranked
Indiana Wesleyan    119    Jan. 23, 2012
Arizona Christian    31    Feb. 5, 2020
Oklahoma Wesleyan    24    Jan. 25, 2021
College of Idaho    22    Feb. 22, 2021

UNCHARTERED TERRITORY: With the exception of the 2020-21 season, College of Idaho has not lost to a CCC opponent in both regular season meetings to a conference opponent since 2015-16 when the Yotes dropped both meetings to Southern Oregon. 

BLISTERING THE NETS: College of Idaho has shot 53.1% from the field since the last meeting against the Warriors. In the process, the Yotes have knocked down 80 (for the season, they have made 193) 3-pointers. 

BRAINS and BASKETBALL: Caden Handran, Isaac Mercer, Jake O'Neil, Straton Rogers, Bryan St. Clair, Paul Wilson and Drew Wyman earned U.S. Bank / Cascade Collegiate Conference Academic All-Conference honors for their performances in the classroom, Student-athletes from the winter sports of men's and women's basketball and men's and women's wrestling earned the distinction. To earn recognition as an All-CCC Academic honoree, a student-athlete must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.2 and sophomore standing.

BOARD WORK: Three players - Caden Handran (10 vs. Hope International - 11/24/23); Jake O'Neil (12 at Warner Pacific - 12/16/23; 10 vs. Montana Western - 11/25/23) and Paul Wilson (10 vs. Montana Western - 11/25/23) - have had double-digit rebounds in a game in 2022-23. With O'Neil and Wilson each grabbing double-digit rebounds against Montana Western, the last time that C of I had two players with double-digit rebounds was at Multnomah on Feb. 4, 2023. Furthermore, the last HOME game with two players with double-digit rebounds was on December 7, 2019 against Multnomah when Talon Galloway had 10 boards and Connor Desaulniers had 16 against the Lions. 

College of Idaho has outrebounded 17 of its last 19 opponents - dating back to 2022-23, the Yotes have outrebounded its 36 of its last 38 opponents. Oregon Tech has outrebounded the Yotes in both contests in 2023-24.

DIALING LONG DISTANCE: Johnny Radford has made 45 3-pointers in 2023-24 for 215 in his career to move into fourth place all-time with Matt Ballinger. Next on the list for Radford is 220 by Neal Roberts. 

THE 3-POINT FIELD GOAL GIFT: College of Idaho knocked down 17 3-pointers in the 107-40 win over Walla Walla on Friday, January 5. The most and at home since they drained 18  since they made 18 against Walla Walla on January 28, 2023. Last season, College of Idaho made 320 3-pointers, the most since a school record 368 in 2018-19.

HOME COURT EDGE: The J.A. Albertson Activities Center is arguably one of the toughest venues in all of NAIA Basketball, as the Coyotes posted a perfect 20-0 mark in 2022-23 and have posted a staggering 155-16 overall record on their home floor since the start of the 2013-14 season. The 20 home wins were just one win shy of  a new school record held by the 2021-22 team. Since the Activities Center opened in 1991, the Yotes have recorded a 377-100 all-time record – with the mark ballooning to 494-109 when accounting the previous decade at O'Connor Fieldhouse.

JAM THE JAAC: College of Idaho led the NAIA with an average of a program best 1,494 fans at its home games in 2022-23. Since 2013-14, with the exception of the CoVID year of 2020-21, College of Idaho has averaged over 1,000 fans per home game.